My newborn seems to be cluster feeding all day long. He will sleep for a couple hours at a time but literally all other times wants the breast. The part that concerns me most is that he doesn't seem to nurse actively for very long, maybe a minute or 2 before he gets dozy and no amount of leg jiggling gets him back for more than a few second.

Is this just how it is with newborns? Everything you read says 8-12 feedings but from his patterns I don't even know how you would define a feeding because it is so constant.

He does have a slight tongue tie that I'm planning to get clipped necause my nipples are cracked and painful and I'm hoping that will fix it. Maybe this feeding pattern is related?

If you actually made it through this ramble, thank you! I'm extra nervous about this because it is similar to how things went with nursing my ods and he ended up failure to thrive and I had to give up bfing.

nb nurse a lot. My baby with tongue tie though wasn't getting as much as he should have been until his tie was clipped. He didn't have a lot of wet or dirty diapers and was losing weight even after my milk came in. My milk was also slower to come in. It came in on day 2 with my older 2 kids. With him it didn't come in until day 3. Fortunately he was clipped on day 4.

Watch mostly for wet and dirty diapers and weight gain. This more than anything will tell you if he is getting enough to eat.

My oldest only nursed for between 5-7 minutes and was done. She didn't seem to need more. Plenty of wet and poopy diapers.

All my nb wanted to nurse all awake time. When in the hospital with dd the nurses commented she was nursing more than other nbs they had seen. I would look at perhaps getting baby weighed sooner rather than later if possible. If he is having good output but you are nervous it never hurts to check to see if there is at least some weight gain. With a tongue tie it is possible he isn't getting enough. Also make sure he is nursing twice on one side before switching him to the other side if his nursing sessions are short. This helps to insure he is getting enough of the fatty hind milk and not just the foremilk.

My mother jokes that my dd was a skim milk baby. Looking back I now know her green diapers were an indication of too much fore milk and not enough hind milk. She gained well so it wasn't an issue for her but it can be for some babies.

Mine would all cluster feed. For about three hours they would nurse, nod off, wake up 15min later, eat, nod off, wake 15min later, eat, nod off, etc. After about 3-4 hours of this, then they would sleep for a good 2-3 hours. Rinse and repeat. They did this until the first growth spurt - where they just wanted to be at the breast 24/7, then fell back into a similar pattern but would be awake for 15-30minutes before wanting to eat. After the next growth spurt the same thing happened. A pattern would be established until the next growth spurt.

After about the growth spurt they at around 2mths, things kind of settled into a fairly predictable routine for a couple of months. Then things changed again but then settled into a routine.

My yds LIVED at the breast for weeks. I swear that is all we did. I have hypo plastic breasts though, so my storage is short, and he has always nursed frequentlyAnd he wouldn't even me me put him down to sleep. He is 18 months and still needs a nipple to fall asleep, but he is perfectly healthy.